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clinch 4/20

Fished the clinch today at the dam, weir, and the church. Caught fish at every spot, however the church and the weir is where I caught the most. Midges up towards the dam seemed best and at the church they wanted pretty much any small nymph. I did see some sulphers hatching around 3 o clock at the church, but the hatch was sparse at best. Its been a while since I caught as many as I did today in all three locations..

Started behind Miller's Island about 12 PM... alot of folks were leaving and reported no catch... saw a fellow from Kodak land a nice bow about 20 inches on his green hotspot quasi and landed a smaller bow myself on size 16 BWO parachute... fish were eating them on a sparse mixed hatch with sulphurs.... wicked picky eaters on the slooooow water.

THEN THE SIREN WENT OFF... WAY EARLY

Went to church and hurled everything till dark; one pull on a streamer. Saw sulphurs, a few olives and "midge balls" extremely sparse hatch... no surface activity and observed no landed fish by the few who were still on river.

Saw several guides float past with "sports" who reported a lot of casting practice.

Cool & Blustery all day; pleased I brought a six weight to pound through it.

I thought Saturday fished very well. The wind was crazy at times and gave me a few fits. However; the fish were steadily taking olive midges and olive sulphurs.

The water is very low; so you have to strategically target fish to maximize your takes-I work the deep holes, fast water, and seams. Be sure to minimize your false casts and use shooting casts upward of your target. Slowly mend line in and be patient on the drift; then mend line back out and maximize the tailout of your drift.

i floated my canoe in the weir dam pond around the gated parking lot side. my brother in law and i had the whole island area to ourselves except tva was working on the weir on the back side of the island. we stayed well out of their way. the fishing was great there, we were picking up browns and rainbows on black midges and black copper johns.

corbo, the tva guys were done working on the weir for the day, and the siren went off as soon as their boats arrived at the launch. i was hoping for more time as well, but my sun burned knees are glad we left when we did

I would love to see a picture of the BWO's y'all are seeing. Glad some are getting a chance to fish and having a good time while out. 3 weeks left of chasing turkeys and I will join the masses.

Jim,
The suspect BWOs I found; was a year to two ago. However; I will keep my eye out and be sure and seine that area really good to get some samples to share. Maybe; they are just a unique variation of the typical sulphur...? But, I will try and find one to share and help us all learn more about the Clinch and nature.

BTW; I about got Turkey Bombed by two huge turkeys Saturday. Flew right over me at about 10 feet. They were beautiful birds!

On a separate point; there must be tons of stocker brown trout in the river. I have caught many small browns that have spectacular color and fin shape.

Jim,
The suspect BWOs I found; was a year to two ago. However; I will keep my eye out and be sure and seine that area really good to get some samples to share. Maybe; they are just a unique variation of the typical sulphur...? But, I will try and find one to share and help us all learn more about the Clinch and nature.

BTW; I about got Turkey Bombed by two huge turkeys Saturday. Flew right over me at about 10 feet. They were beautiful birds!

On a separate point; there must be tons of stocker brown trout in the river. I have caught many small browns that have spectacular color and fin shape.

I have seen Sulphurs over the years that have an olive tint to them, but have never seen a true BWO. It wouldn't surprise me if there weren't some around, and I would love to see them if you or anyone else gets a chance to snap a pic.

Watch out for the turkeys, they may mistake you for me and try to drown you in order to save their species

Four weeks ago on a cold friday I positively saw BWO's size 16 on the Clinch at Millers Island; not a huge amount and none left the water... I think it was too cold for them to fly off the film.

On Saturday most of the mayflies I saw were indeed Sulphurs but they were "Invaria" which are usually darker than the typical common sulphur and have red eyes and a dun wing most often size 16.

Dorothea Sulpurs are distinctly "sulphur" and distinctly yellow and perhaps a tad of orange usually size 14 in my experience.

I have no doubt that I saw some BWO's on Saturday but not many...

Bugs will find their way to new waters... when parts of the Kennebec benefited from much cleaner water BWO's were the first to appear followed several years later by Dorothea and then invaria and finally Isonychia.

Boy do I wish the Clinch had Iso's!

Now as to Shawn's nymphs.... beats me but I wish I had a fly to match them on saturday! Wish I had not left the CDC olives in the truck.

I fished the Church last night between 6pm & 8pm, saw no hatches and a few rises. Caught a total of two on a dropper at diffrent times, sulpher parachute 18 on top and black zebra 20, I had tied on bottom. First fish was on zebra nice size, second fish was small but hit the top fly which suprised me due to I had parachute on mainly for sight in flat light and did not expect a hit on it. The key for me on the Clinch is long long leaders and tippet and work that retrieve like Madison always says and I add some wiggle as I think he suggests also. It has only taken me a year of solid fishing the Clinch weekly to become a pitiful barely profcient fly fisherman who spends to much time and money on the Clinch!

The Clinch can be a tough river for certain.... particularly the zebra midge business. The other day I used 6.5 X at the Church in the afternoon and couldn't buy a fish. There were a bunch of "midge balls" going past me and I might have tried a Griffith's knat.

Seems I will be "tweaking" flies for the Clinch forever as Shawn & Beto keep finding "new" bugs and new "forms" of them.

Check out Shawn's underwater bug & trout videos on YouTube; they have made me "think" differently about trout behavior...